Date of Award

2015

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

There exists a large disparity between children in need of mental health services and those that actually receive assistance. Previous research has identified many sociodemographic variables thought to contribute to this disparity (e.g., family income, marital status, child difficulty, parenting stress, parenting efficacy). More recent research suggests that cognitive factors may not only predict parent willingness to seek help, but may also predict which types of treatment interventions that parents prefer. Help-seeking research often focuses on perceived barriers/interest in receiving therapy services, and largely ignores assessment. The present study examined the extent to which parent attributions predict parent willingness to seek help for their children, as well as the type of services parents preferred, after accounting for child/family sociodemographic factors known to serve as barriers to help-seeking. It also examined obstacles experienced while seeking assessment and therapy services. The Parent Cognition Scale, Obstacles to Therapy Services Questionnaire, Obstacles to Assessment Questionnaire, and a measure of help-seeking behavior was administered to 52 parents of children ages 5-13. Multiple regression analyses revealed that parent attributions was the only significant predictor of help-seeking. Contrary to hypotheses, sociodemographic barriers known to be influential in predicting parent help-seeking behaviors (i.e., family income, parenting stress) and the number or intensity of treatment obstacles were not significant predictors of parent help-seeking. Parents endorsing greater child-responsible attributions for problematic child behaviors endorsed greater interest in help-seeking overall. They endorsed similar interest in both child- and parent-focused services, but less interest in family services. As predicted, the number and intensity of assessment obstacles experienced by parents were very similar to obstacles anticipated for therapy services. Results highlight the importance of cognitive and attributional factors on parent help-seeking behaviors in a clinical sample, and also suggest future directions for attribution research.

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